* * * The enemy has outposts in your head. A rant. * * *

[moodforaday]

"The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
-- Steven Biko

From Wexler on Palin:

...Sarah Palin is a far right, pro-life zealot...

When talking about fundamentalists, women-haters and hypocrites, please do not call them "pro-life", ever, if you want to make any sense. How can "pro-life" be bad? Pro-life is good. Pro-life is anti-war. Pro-life is pro-healthcare, pro-safety net for families who can't afford insurance or housing; pro-life is pro-sex education, pro-life is anti-corporate feudalism, pro-life is anti-violence, anti-death penalty, anti-marital abuse... Pro-life is all the things right-wingers and "conservatives" are totally NOT.

Call them what they are. Call them women-haters. Call them misogynists, because they are. Call them corporate neofeudalists. Call them authoritarian, hypocritical, sex-obsessed, self-hating, misanthropic, mentally repressed greedy lying bastards. Because they are. If you're on teevee, feel free to skip the bastards.

Just call them evil. It worked when * did, so learn the lesson.

And while we're at it, don't call someone a war hero and a patriot whose service to the country you respect, only to later tell him to take a long walk off a short plank. It sends a mixed message. Someone who drops bombs on civil population in a foreign country is a war CRIMINAL, not a war hero. Anyone who is unprepared to make this distinction in public should take a long walk themselves, because they're not going to change a thing.

As the saying goes, "It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head". DU'ers often express amazement at why so many people vote Republican all their lives, against their best interests. They do so because the enemy has outposts in their heads. Because as they adopted the language of the slavemasters, they perceive the reality as the slavemasters project it. Their minds have been snatched. They know ignorance is strength. They know war is peace. They're as good as gone.

So just call things what they are. Please?

(Disclaimer: I am not singling Mr Wexler out for the purposes of this rant. It's much more serious than that, because it's everywhere, because it's right there in our heads. Sigh. End of rant.)

[lligrd]

1. Pro-Embryo, After That You're Just Fodder nt

[onethatcares]

2. great rant.

I agree.

[The Blue Flower]

3. YES. Thank you.

They are anything BUT pro-life. They're anti-choice. And wouldn't it be wonderful to drop "Homeland Security" at long last in favor of "National Defense?"

[moodforaday]

5. Would that it were national defense

It's more like Government Security. But you're right, that's another misnomer, and there's plenty more of them.

And then, so is "security". For security, you can almost always substitute "control". Freedom cage, free speech zones, Gitmo on the Platte, warantless wiretaps - control, not security.

[Caliman73]

18. I like Homeland "Control" or "Passification"

That is more in line with what the Bush administration has been doing. They have not been making the country more secure. They haven't replaced the crumbling infrastructure that caused the levies to break in NOLA. They have not secured the ports of the nation with chemical, biological, and nuclear threats. What have they done AT ALL to secure our homeland? Nothing. They have gained control and pacified the populace by tapping our phones and making dissent unpatriotic. They scare us from time to time with an alert. Agreed, not security, Control.

[realisticphish]

4. i always say anti-choice

"pro-life" is an idiotic moniker, especially when those same people support the war

[fascisthunter]

6. Retaking Language is Very Smart

[moodforaday]

9. And relatively easy

once you start monitoring what you're saying. I'm not saying anything new; George Lakoff has been writing about it for years, and at some point - still, maybe - he was advising Democrats on "framing" issues, to avoid using the Republican false frames of reference. Really to avoid Orwellian "doublespeak" - the term 'pro life' is a perfect example of that.

What bothers me is it's not happening. I'm a linguist and a translator, so perhaps I am more bothered by such skewed use of language than people who don't worry about what words mean all day every day, it really pains me.

[fascisthunter]

13. I Agree... People Need to Call the Iraqi Presence an "Occupation"

and not a "war". Words do matter.... Rove and his handlers know this all too well.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. More correctly, it was an illegal invasion of Iraq

and is now an illegal occupation.

[fascisthunter]

20. much more precise

thank you for the correction.

[annabanana]

17. The language is a powerful tool. Unexamined assumptions

are built right into the expressions that are pushed forward. They are parroted and spread through the media and any subsequent questioning of the, now, "conventional wisdom" feels counter-intuitive.

People who grew up speaking one language in the home, then adopted another later know how "thinking in one language" is different than "thinking in another" in ways that are difficult to qualify.

[Karenina]

23. Yup. n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

7. This is exactly what George Lakoff has been talking about for years..

Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics

<snip>George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of linguistics and cognitive science, thinks he knows why. Conservatives have spent decades defining their ideas, carefully choosing the language with which to present them, and building an infrastructure to communicate them, says Lakoff.

The work has paid off: by dictating the terms of national debate, conservatives have put progressives firmly on the defensive. <snip>

lots more great info at...
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

[moodforaday]

10. Absolutely, thank you (nt)

[bertman]

8. Thanks for the reminder.

[hfojvt]

11. the lunatic

is in my head :rofl: (tee hee)

[ThomWV]

12. That was well put and hardly a rant at all, more of an education

Thank you.

[dkofos]

14. Pro life except when it comes to puppies.

[Chovexani]

15. Preach.

:thumbsup:

[jasmeel]

16. Anti choice is preferable. It grates on me everytime someone

says pro life-

[lonestarnot]

21. Alrightie then!

women-haters misogynists,corporate neofeudalists,authoritarian, hypocritical, sex-obsessed, self-hating, misanthropic, mentally repressed, greedy, lying bastards bushitlers! Wheewww that felt good!

[Karenina]

22. . .